My blogging has been very sparse of late and I do apologize for that. Between Christmas, familial illnesses, and my own illness — creeping crud caught at LosCon — it has been a  rough couple of weeks. I’m going to try to do better for everyone here and I appreciate your patience.

So last night I watched Sleep Hollow (1999), Director Tim Burton’s take of the classic story by Washington Irving. Starring Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, Cristina Ricci as Katrina Van Tassel and a superb  cast of English actors supporting out the film. Christopher Walken appears briefly, and mutely, as the Headless Horseman with most of the Headless bit performed by Ray Park.

While the core concept is taken from Washington Irving’s short story, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, what Burton has placed on the screen is an updated Hammer Horror film. The cast is English and speak in their native English accents — or affect one in the case of the American actors — and the culture surrounding the characters is clearly British. The nature of the courts, manner of the gentry and so on all make this film feel much more at home in some isolated area of the Britain than in up-state New York at the turn of the 18th Century.

That aside this is a wonderful film, if you like the classic look and feel of Hammer Horror. there is a delightful mix of supernatural and the mundane. Ichabod is a police inspector anxious to prove that modern scientific methods are the only way to detect and prove the guilty. he doesn’t believe in ghost and spirits. Naturally the Headless Horseman is a bit of a shook to his theory that the murders in the Sleep Hollow are the results of a culprit of flesh and blood.

The resolution of these two opposing ideas is one of harmonious balance. Ichabod can both be right and be wrong and in such we see that truth and appearance are rarely the same thing. A theme that is built upon and one that unfolds nicely in the movie.

If you have not seen this film, it is worth a look.

This is a movie I listed as one of the most influential horror films of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night Of The Living Dead. This is the film that forever changed what we consider to be  zombie, and yet when George Romero made the movie the one word he never used in the script was zombie. The monsters were always called things, or ghouls.

Before this film any movies about zombies generally dealt with them as though they are from Caribbean myth, the reanimated corpses of the recently dead that serve the wishes of an evil wizard or priest. In White Zombie they are laborers making a sugar cane plantation work, in other films armies of the dead are used, but always there is a controlling agency that is the source of the scourge with understandable if somewhat irrational motivations.

With Night Of The Living Dead (Originally titled Night Of The Flesh Eaters.) Romero created a new monster, one that everyone else referred to as a zombie and that in end supplanted the Caribbean zombie as the de-facto zombie legend.

In terms of filmcraft, this film is a flawed film suffering from a lack of skill in the writing and direct through limited budget and effect capability. If you watch this film looking for quality film making you will be disappointed. What this film had, especially for its time (1968) was shock value. Compared to the horror films of of the 60’s this is an in your face gore-fest. The film is simply relentless in his ferocity. At this time other films were satisfied with smear of blood for gore, while Romero took the audience up close to entrails eating ghouls. The film was also ground breaking in the casting of a black man in the heroic lead. At the time when race riots were breaking out and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was being assassinated, to have a black hero ordering about a white man and slapping a hysterical white woman was simply unparalleled.  It is to Romero’s ethical credit that he saw nothing ground breaking in this. He has made mention in numerous interviews that the actor, Duane Jones, got the part simply because he was the best actor who read for it.

The film’s tones is also more like something from the 70’s than something from the 60’s. Its futile ending reflects the growing cynicism and fatalism in american society.

Of course the films lasting influence was with the creation of the new screen monster, the zombie. After this movie zombies became self-motivated — usually only by hunger — relentless hordes of undead. They were freed of the slavery imagery and instead became an all-consuming mindless crowd. Eventually zombies as a monster factionalized as new filmmakers tried new ways to invigorate and revitalized the concept (If I can be pardoned for using the term in relation to the undead.) Dan O’Bannon gave us smart and indestructible zombies in Return Of The Living Dead, — which is actually a sequel to Night Of The Living Dead — Zack Snyder gave us fast zombies in the remake of Dawn Of The Dead,  and Danny Boyle gave us viral zombies in 28 Days Later. There have been others cause the zombie genre is not dead, but forever undead and ready to bite, however they all owe a debt to George A. Romero and nine friends who wanted to make a monster movie.

So last night I watched an atmospheric horror film from the early sixties, The Innocents (1961) based on the novella The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James.

The story is about a young and inexperienced nanny, Miss Giddens  – played wonderfully by Deborah Kerr – who is sent to look after the household and two young wards who are the niece and nephew of her employer.  Their uncle wants nothing to do with the children, being a bachelor and happy in his lack of responsibilities.

The household, Bly House, is in the country and the characters are isolated there, living in their own little world. Things seem normal enough until Miles, the young nephew is sent home, expelled from school under mysterious circumstances. Miles is played by the outstanding young actor Martin Stephens best known to me as the David the leader of the alien children in the classic SF film The Village Of The Damned. He is equally good here playing an equally stranger and terrifying child.

Events take a turns for the strange and Miss Giddens begins to suspects that not only is the supernatural afoot in the household, but that the two innocent children are hiding terrible secrets and that the innocence is all lies and deceit.

This film works its horror without overt acts of violence or scenes of random brutality. It is a slow piece, with careful photography  that builds suspense and tension with understated shots, and a disdain for photographic trickery. The image above is one of the ones I found most unsettling in the film. I can’t explain the image too much without indulging in spoilers, but it is the heart of the story right there in one image.

Today’s horror films have, in general, lost all sense of the unease that should be at the heart of horror. There is way too much attention paid to pain, suffering, and dismemberment. Torture-porn is not horror in my opinion. Horror comes from that moment when the sand shifts under your feet and the world no longer works the way you thought it did. This film capture that emotional wonderfully.

It is hard to believe that it has been twenty-two years since I first saw the film, The Princess Bride. The film took my breath away with its romance, its humor, and its action. This was and still is a wonderful  film to discover. William Goldman, author of the novel and the screenplay, subverts the cliches of the fairly tale without mocking them. He takes a fairly standard plot-line and set of baseline characters and weaves something truly original. The novel is well worth the time to read, even if you have seen the movie. People interested in adaptation of novels to screenplays should pay strict attention as Goldman is the master of the art. (Some of his previous adaptations, include Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, and The Ghost and the Darkness.) This perfect date movie was directed flawless by Rob Reiner, son of comedian legend Carl Reiner and a talent who has become a force for directional skill and artistry in his own right.

Reiner cast the film perfectly, Carey Elwes as Westley, Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, and Andre the Giant as Fezzik the Giant. (in fact Goldman tells us that the role of Fezzik was written with Andre The Giant in mind so it truly was perfect casting.)

After suffering through The Mist as last weekend’s Sunday Night Movie, I knew I wanted to watch a film that would make me feel good about life and love and dreams. Something to cleanse my palate, my mind, and my soul of the foul taste that wretched film left behind. It was down to my favorite — emotionally speaking – film of all time, The Princess Bride.

Despite suffering from a headache all day Sunday (one that plagues me even now even as I write this on Monday night) The Princess Bride lifted my spirits, brought joy to my heart, and laughter to my lips. I also had a spot of inspiration into the ending fight for my novel Cawdor.  It will sort of be the inverse of the final fight between Inigo and Count Rugen – The Six Fingered Man. The hero will say nothing all during the fight. She will be an implacable force for vengeance.

This film is medicine for the soul. It washes away cynicism and helps reveal a better heart.

So with a nod towards Halloween my Sunday Night movie this weekend was The Mist. The Mist is a monster movie based on the Stephen King novella os the same title. I had hear a number of good things about this film and it’s been sitting in my Netflix queue for sometime, so I decided that Halloween was the perfect time to give it a spin.

I was disappointed. This film did not work for me and frankly left me rather cold. It may be that I have grown out of my Stephen King phase or it could be that King has grown stale. Either way too many of the elements to the story felt like stock and formula elements rather than facet of a storyline.

The Mist is a story about a small New England town that is suddenly engulfed in a mysterious mist one day following a terrible storm. The protagonist of the film is David Drayton, played by Thomas Jane, a graphic artist with a loving wife and intelligent little boy. His life is complicated by his neighbor, Brent Norton (played by Andre Braugher) a big shot lawyer with whom Drayton has scuffled in court over property damages. The two, along with Drayton’s son, drive into town for supplies following the storm and are trapped in the local supermarket when the mist closes in around the town.

Quickly it become apparent that there is something in the mist and it is death to go out into it. There are a number of other people trapped in the supermarket and it’s clear that everyone here is part of the stock company of Stephen King characters. David Drayton himself is the smart, talented and usually liked artist. Brant Norton is the unlikeable lawyer/business man type, you have the not-too-bright and even less courageous mechanics in Jim and Myron, the likable and sweet high school girl who babysits for the locals, the shy boy, and the character no King story can possible be without, the Christian Zealot, here embodied by Mrs. Carmody, played by Marcia Gay Harden.

Mrs Carmody is truly a character I am tired of seeing. She is not a character as much as she is parody of a character. King’s dislike of christian characters is evident in  work and Mrs. Carmody is no exception. There was nothing interesting, new, or exciting with this set of characters captured in this plot.

The majority of the screentime is spent as a siege movie. The people trapped in the store struggling to over the the events tossed at them. This whole story is pretty much the opposite of a character driven piece. Here events happen, tentacles grab people, giant bugs fly into the store with deadly stingers, and people react to these events. Overall I will give this to the film, the main characters do NOT act like professional victims. They generally figure out the right approaches and right techniques to deal with the situation. However they are reactive and that in my book generally makes for more boring stories.

The film remained so-so right up until the resolution when it jumped the shark and turned into utter garbage. To explain why I feel that was will mean spoilers, so if you wanna know, follow me through the jump.

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Released in the USA in May 2008 this French film is a deadpan spoof of classic 60’s spy films. OSS 117 is the title and code name for the lead character, played perfectly by Jean Dujardin. (Picture here as his character us learning to Mambo with lovely co-star Berenice Bejo.)

OSS 117 is sent to Cairo after the agent already in place goes missing and is considered assassinated. His mission is to find out who killed Jack Jefferson, OSS 117’s best friend, discover the fate of a missing Soviet ship full of arms, investigate local islamic terrorists out to overthrow the government and protect the French interests in the region. You know, the typical stuff that James Bond does before breakfast.

Oss 117 thinks he’s Bond. This is the 50’s. He dresses in the height of fashion, he knows every woman wants to bed him and he utterly clueless to just how thick he really is.

Jean Durjandin plays Sean Connery but with just the right amount of overacting. He clearly studied Connery’s movements and mannerisms, then repeated them in a larger broader fashion for comedy. The satire works spot-on. He delivers puns and quips that no one thinks is funny save himself. He routinely misses vital clues while self absorbed with some tiny detail that matters to only him, such as ‘Has the car been washed recently?’

Even with the subtitles getting the way of some subtle verbal performances, this film was a real treat and one I am likely to pick-up and add to my collection.

A day late because I’ve been working overtime at my day-job, but here is my Sunday Night Movies Feature.

This Sunday I watched Aliens (1986) I have the big boxed set with all four films in the Alien franchise, though I am really only a fan of two of the films. (Alien and Aliens) The Boxed set has two versions of each movie, the theatrical cut and a director’s cut.

The Director’s Cut of Aliens really does add a lot of character to the film and is my preferred version to watch. However due to time constraints I watched the original theatrical cut of the film on Sunday night. I had this strange desire to be in bed before midnight — silly me.

Aliens is the rare sequel that lives up as a worthy successor to the previous film. Alien is a masterpiece of a horror film directed with perfect style by Ridley Scott. (Can anyone explain to me what Ridley Scott is doing directing the film version of Monopoly? A movie based on a board game? A storyless board game. Never mind, that’s a rant for another day.) Aliens does not try to be a horror film, writer/Director James Cameron crafted Aliens to be an action movies so that he would not be simply re-making Scott’s film. This was the right call to make and a spot where many sequels go wrong. They fail to find a way to be their own film while honoring the first.

In this sequel, Cameron, focuses on Ripley, played pitch perfect by Sigourney Weaver, and her survivor’s guilt. Cameron takes a character that had no backstory – hell in the original screenplay Ripley had no gender – and crafted a backstory that propels the character in action over her paralyzing fear. (Most of the back story elements are presented in the Director’s cut which I recommend you view if you have not.)

Cameron plays perfectly with the form of the story in Alien as a template for his own movie, while creating interesting characters. The arc of the two films are very similar and this is no accident. The turncoat characters, big explosions, and explosive decompression are elements which have cause some to call Aliens derivative, but I think those people miss the point. It was similar because it was not a horror film. We already knew what the monster was and how it worked. The real key in a horrific story is the elements that do not follow our known rules and assumptions about the universe. Once something becomes known and understandable it loses a lot of power to horrify. Hence, Cameron’s call to make this an action film.

Truly I did not regret the two hours plus watching the film Sunday night and wished I could have spent the time to watch the longer version.

So, Sunday night I was in the mood for adventure. After pulling out several film from my collection for consideration I settled in 1999’s remake of The Mummy. In general I am not a  fan of remakes, but there is a statute of limitations and any film over 70 years old is not automatically off the remake list. (That doesn’t mean you should remake all good movies older than 70 years, just it is something that can be considered.)

The Original The Mummy, a vehicle for rising monster star, Boris Karloff. There are no historical myths about monstrous mummies. The process of mummification was one used in ancient Egypt to preserve the body after death because the owner of said body was going to need it in the afterlife, not to hunt down tomb robbers and look up lost loves.

In the 1920s and 1930s there was a veritable mania about Egypt going on worldwide and the script for The Mummy (1932) tapped into that mania for a new monster to be played by Boris Karloff and created by Jack Pierce. The film proved popular enough to spin off a chain of sequels  Only the first film starred Karloff and the sequels grew progressively  worse. At the end of the franchise all semblance continuity had been abandoned and little remained to recommend the movies.

In the 1990’s Universal wanted to launch their monster franchises and one of the film that sought to do it with was The Mummy. The projected bounced from production team to production team but none were able to crack how to remake the classic film. Director writer Stephen Sommers cracked the beast with two insights. First that it would work best as a period film, set in the 1920’s when the craze for Egypt was high and everyone and their brother dreamt of looting tombs and getting rich. Secondly, that the original film was not about a bandage wrapped limping monsters, but about a powerful priest and a love beyond time.

Armed with these two points Sommers gave us a film that fit perfectly into our time. The outstanding digital effects from ILM created a Mummy unlike anything we had ever seen before. A cast of talented actors including Brendan Fraiser and Rachel Weisz along with just the right amount of winking at the camera gave us an adventure film that was fun, exciting, and a little scary. (The need to keep the film a PG-13 rating prevented real horror for creeping onto the screen.)

Sadly, Sommers was not so good at crafting sequels. The Mummy Returns was a bland, bored mixture of camp and stupidity.  Sommers continued to disappoint me with the horrid film, Van Helsing. Only two things redeem the production of Van Helsing, one is the performance by David Wenham, who stole every scene he was in. The other was that is helped Universal release the Legacy Collections of DVD for their classic monster films.

We’ll see if the reboot of The Wolf Man matches the reboot of The Mummy, but I doubt it.